m e t r o n o m e
by Nagia
Summary: He haunts Shinra's halls with music, just as Shinra's orders haunt his mind. [And Lucrecia sometimes laments that her greatest crime was the destruction of an artist.] [Connected to Caveat Canus]


Notes: Disjointed, odd, odd, connects a little with Caveat Canus.

* * *

**m**** e t r o n o m e**

* * *

Black-and-white still life cut from a magazine: the shining keyboard of an elegant Baby Grand. Long, pale fingers splayed on the ivory. The hands are well-groomed, each nail short, completely symmetrical. No cuticle out of place. No rings. Masculine. A surgeon's hands.

The carefully positioned fingers look like the legs of two white spiders preparing to pounce and skitter, scurry, scuttle up and down those dazzling keys.

* * *

This is the foyer at two AM: dust, darkness, dully gleaming hardwood floors. Stained glass making whimsical, meaningless patterns of whatever is visible. Beautiful South Wutaian carpets.

In the corner, a piano. It inhabits one of the deeper shadowed corners, hidden partially by placement and mostly by lack of light. The woman trapped forever in the stained glass does not see it; hers is a hell devoid of music.

A single note breaks the silence. It is a tentative lower C, in the minor scale. It hovers in the air, shivering a little.

Silence follows.

Then a second note. A higher note. Then a third, a fourth. Rest. Five, six, rest.

And then the notes come faster, become a melody. Strains of song seep from the piano.

* * *

Black-and-white from an album in the Manor: an opened Baby Grand, with a well-dressed young man kneeling before it. The strings and hammers are visible, though half of the piano's insides are shrouded in blackness. An array of tuning forks, an electronic tuner, rubber wedges, and hammers lies scattered along the bench.

The young man's suit is a shade of grey that suggests navy blue. The gun holstered at his hip seems out-of-place next to the tuning fork.

* * *

A summer afternoon. Sunlight streams in through the stained glass windows. The team of scientists has, briefly, given up on the specimen in the hidden levels of the Manor. The doctor—the only medical doctor on the team—has given up on coaxing the TURKS to allow her outside.

Too many security risks, the team leader tells her, keeping his eyes narrow. With only one team assigned to the Project, plugging all the security holes would be too difficult.

So she stays inside, sits on the grand staircase she's always wanted, a little, to slide down. Reads a book.

After a few minutes of this, the youngest TURK—"her" TURK, everybody thinks he is—cracks his knuckles and strides over to the piano sitting in the corner. He slides the casing up. The thud as the case rears back and the piano keys come into the TURK's view reverberates throughout the open room.

The TURK stares at the keys.

Gently, almost shyly, he taps an ivory key. The piano responds with a quiet note.

And then he flings his fingers along the keyboard, striking every note in what is probably a major chord. Only his arms seem to move as the piano trills. His gaze is fixed on the keys.

The notes echo in the air, spinning breathlessly. He tilts his chin, listens to the ricocheting sounds. And then he shakes his head, 'no.'

"Out of tune," he says.

The case slams back down.

She returns to her book.

* * *

Newspaper clipping found taped to a mirror: "CHILDREN'S RECITAL HOSTED IN SHINRA MANOR."

* * *

He's playing the piano again, she realizes as she comes up from the labs. As usual, it's a piece in the minor key. He seems to have some sort of fondness for it.

"What's your name, anyway?" She asks as she enters the foyer, pulling off her bloodstained labcoat and trying not to think about Neil.

He looks up at her and smiles a haunting, enigmatic smile.

* * *

Polaroid photograph: a young man and a slightly older woman sitting on a piano bench, both dressed in suits, both armed. The young man sits to the woman's left. His hands are on the keys, his confident expression aimed somewhere out of the camera's view. The woman's fingers on the keys are curved, as if she's afraid the keyboard will bite. She is looking at the man's hands, a slight smile on her face.

The image is slightly blurry, as if the hands holding the camera trembled.

* * *

The lower hallway, one AM.

She's just coming up from the lab (this time no blood, only crazy scientists trying to get her to treat some sort of Nibel wolf with no explanation of how the thing got in the Manor) when she sees an unnatural dark spot leaning against a wall.

It's the piano player, she realizes. She recognizes that smooth stride.

"Vincent Valentine," he murmurs as he passes her.

Somewhere beneath them, the wolf begins to howl.

It's almost musical.

* * *

Black-and-white: an enormous wolf. There are masses growing from its head that could be horns. It has a white fur ruff that might pass for a lion's mane. That horned head is tilted back, mouth wide open in what must be a mournful howl.

* * *

The foyer, three AM.

He's at it again. Minor keys again, played with force. The pattern to the notes he strikes seems loose. Rests are random. It's as if the pianist is trying to recreate something from memory, something timeless and tuneless.

Six keys sound in unison, once, twice, three times. The piano stills.

And then the player begins to hum something. It's a long string of notes, starting out low and ending on a chilling high _something_. She sits down on the stairs to listen as he hums a piece of the string, mumbling letters to himself. Minutes pass.

And then the piano sounds again. This time, it's more mournful. The song—if that's what it is—keens high and low in a melody no human could put words to.

In the lab, the wolf responds. Its howl is muffled, but it comes through loud and clear, even in the foyer. Lurecia supposes that noise in the lab is deafening.

The piano replies in a long, loud succession of noise.

Silence from the wolf, then an almost thoughtful rejoinder.

After a few more minutes of this, the two begin to howl together. They harmonize. Together, wolf and man grieve the loss of... something. Some quality she doesn't understand.

As she stands to leave, she wonders if the TURK understands what he's doing.

* * *

Note left in the lab: "Subject Galian exhibited unusual levels of activity this morning between the hours of 03:00 and 03:45. Suggest increasing Ketamine dosage."

* * *

Gunshots. She never expected to actually hear gunshots.

Screaming.

The TURKS.

Gunshots.

Hojo's voice.

Running footsteps.

Lucrecia stares at the ceiling with dazed eyes, trying dimly to understand what she hears, then trying to figure out why everything seems so strange. Then she sees the two IV bags. One, she knows, is probably ketamine.

More gunshots.

Vincent's voice.

She startles, but her body feels as if it's moving through water. For some reason, even though she's leaning forward, nothing in front of her changes. A few seconds later, the world is back to normal. Except that as she turns her head, her view stays the same.

Definitely Ketamine, she realises with just a shade of horror.

* * *

Broken and seeping medicine bottles. Shell casings litter the floors. In the far left corner of the room, a wolf crouches behind a heavy cage.

* * *

The crypt, anytime.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

It's endless. Measured. Almost perfect. Like a heartbeat.

It is the only sound he hears anymore, kept in his coffin. Where exactly it's coming from, he doesn't know. But it must be nearby, or else he wouldn't hear it.

It's the pulse of his nightmares. The tie to his more idyllic dreams—memories of ivory keys, strict instructions, dour expressions but thrilling music, music, _music_—and the one thing that lulls him back to sleep when he wakes.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

* * *

EL FIN 


End file.
